


break my heart and soul inside

by AegwynnMagna



Category: Warcraft (2016)
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-13
Updated: 2019-06-13
Packaged: 2020-05-07 08:49:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19205983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AegwynnMagna/pseuds/AegwynnMagna
Summary: At the beginning of spring, Lothar leaves on a mission.





	break my heart and soul inside

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in the summer 2016, between July and October. I have no idea why I never posted it before now. I think I intended for it to be part of a longer fanfiction. I found it today and decided to type it up, changing a few things to fit the pace and my taste better. Enjoy:)  
> Title from "The Truth" by Good Charlotte.

At the beginning of spring, Lothar leaves on a mission. For weeks, there is no word from him or his troops. No one knows anything, no one has seen anything, no one has heard anything since their departure. By the time the third week rolls around, Khadgar has managed to extract information from Taria. It’s a spying mission, to retrieve plans that the Alliance has been trying to get a hold of for months. It’s the most important mission ever attempted since Llane died. If it fails, there is no telling what will happen of them.

Khadgar doesn’t care. That night, Khadgar curses and trashes around the library and scatters papers and unlit candles all over the floor. When he finally stops and looks around at the mess he has made, he breathes deeply and makes a decision. He stops sleeping – running on invigorating potion and sheer spite – and he starts working. He reads and studies and practices. He is not a warrior, can’t do much with a sword, can barely lift it above his shoulders. He isn’t a priest or a healer, would not know what to do with a wound and the right instrument even if his own life depended on it. But he is a mage, and a good one at that, a mage Medivh believed in, and Azeroth may not need a Guardian anymore but she needs Mages and Khadgar is right there.

Khadgar isn’t supposed to care. What Lothar and he have has nothing to do with caring. It is touch and sensation and forgetting. It is not feeling or hurting. He isn’t supposed to get attached, isn’t supposed to miss and worry and reach out at night for someone that is not there. He isn’t supposed to wait until the darkest hours of the night, hoping, and not sleeping, all pretence of research forgotten between the pages of a book. But Khadgar worries like a lover worries and not like he should. But he is no lover and his worry does not matter. So instead he buries himself in work and tries to forget.

Some nights, the thought gets too loud. They drown everything around him, leave him gasping for something he does not understand as they wrap around his throat and squeeze the breath out of his lungs. Some nights, he cries. Anger and frustration build up to the point where they burst out of him and crying is quieter than shouting so that is what he does. Some nights, it seems as if he has stopped feeling. The thoughts became so loud that they have drowned themselves and all that is left is silence. These nights find him sitting on the floor with his back to a wall, drinking from a bottle of rum just to remind himself of the taste.

Taria worries like a mother worries, and not like a Queen. He sees it in her eyes, sometimes, when he crosses her path in a corridor, not sure what the time is but it must be daytime. He sees it in the way she looks at him, the way she looked at Lothar, the way he supposed he looked at Lothar too. She looks at him like that, when he starts hoping, instead of despairing. When word reach them that there’s a party heading straight for Stormwind and that they were victorious. He sees it when she stops him in the corridor and lays a hand on his arm and tells him:

“Be careful.”

~~~

Lothar arrives in Stormwind in the middle of the night. He has lost half his men, good soldiers with wives and children. An officer who was as close to him as he let people get these days. Lothar tries not to think about it too much. He longs for oblivion and sleep just won’t cut it.

He isn’t drunk. He hasn’t had anything to drink for weeks but that is not what he is craving right now. There is light under his door and he doesn’t stop to think about what that means. He knocks, a gesture that would seem ridiculous to him considering it is his own door, but he doesn’t have it in him to care.

The door opens and Khadgar is there. It feels like a breath of fresh air, the kind that freezes your lungs and wakes you up at once. Khadgar has bags under his eyes, his hair is messy and greasy and longer than Lothar has ever seen it. There is a manic gleam in his eyes, the one that means he had been reading too much, but none of that matters. He looks terrible, and he must know that, and he looks beautiful.

Lothar pushes in and closes the door behind him. He does not have to say a word – that is the beauty of it. Khadgar understands – always have – always will. He takes his hands and pulls. Lothar lets himself be led. Lets himself be dragged to the bed and pushed on it, sprawled and unguarded and ready. Lets Khadgar cover him, his weight falling over him like a blanket. A small smile blooms on his lips, and it’s too bright, too relieved, and Lothar can’t take it so he kisses him. 

There are fingers brushing his face, his cheeks, his brow, pushing back into his hair and detangling it from the knot Lothar kept it in. Khadgar whispers his name, “Lothar,” and it sounds wrong but he repeats it over and over as he undresses him and drags his lips all over him, his jaw, his neck, his shoulders. Khadgar whispers his name and with each iteration Lothar feels himself be built up from the ground again. He whispers his name like it is a prayer, like he worships him and it does feel like a blessing when he stretches him slowly, taking every bit of what Lothar is willing to give. He whispers his name as if he loves him and maybe that is why it sounds so wrong but then he pushes into him and Lothar can’t bare to think about it any more.

Lothar knows the million reasons why they can’t be letting this happen but he lets it anyway. He lets himself be taken in every way possible, body, soul and mind. And Khadgar takes it all. Khadgar kisses when Lothar moans, and bites when he hisses, and smiles when he cries. When Lothar comes, he does so with a shudder, and Khadgar embraces him, holds him until it’s over and then he doesn’t let go.

That’s not how it’s supposed to go. But Lothar closes his arms around Khadgar’s waist and holds him tight, that night, and lets himself be hushed and his hair be brushed, and his soul be soothed. There is something unbelievingly sweet, unbelievingly bitter and heart wrenching in watching someone you love fall asleep, Lothar thinks, minutes before dawn, as Khadgar has finally tired and surrendered to the call of sleep, head on Lothar’s chest, hair fanned out across his skin, beautiful.

~~~

In the morning, Lothar is gone and in his stead is a letter.

Khadgar reads it and stays prone for a long time. When he finally moves, he goes to find Taria and he screams. He screams until his throat feels like it’s bleeding and then he screams some more. He freezes anyone who tries to stop him. 

Taria looks at him like she never has before and it isn’t pity but it is something not too far from it. It is understanding and pain and love, and somehow that makes it worse because suddenly he can’t scream. Instead he sobs, for her, for him, for himself, and then he curses every god he has ever bothered to learn the name of and he prays to the Light. Taria holds him, and it’s softer than the way Lothar had clung to him the night before but it’s close. 

Khadgar hates her and blames her with every fibre in his being, every breath he takes, every one of his heartbeats because he knows she gave the order. He knows she agreed with it and he knows she hates herself but she can’t show it and so he sobs for her.

Khadgar screams and struggles because it hurts and he sobs because it can’t possibly be true.

In his closed off fist, the letter crinkles.

_Khadgar,_

_There are many things that I wish I could have told you but some things are better left unsaid. So, I will tell you to take care of Taria, because she only acts strong because that’s what’s expected of her. Take care of Varian, because he will make a great king someday. And take care of yourself, too, because… well, I think you know why._

_Khadgar. I am so proud of you._

_The retrieval mission was a success. The plans have been recovered. Victory, finally, is ours. If I am able to go into battle now, it is because I know you will carry on and fight for what you know to be right. I am telling you this because I go into battle, knowing fully well that I will not return._

And Khadgar knows that it’s true.

* * *


End file.
